Before Death
by Kage NoTenshi
Summary: Ryou shows his Yami a few new perspectives on life
1. Beginning the End

Deathfic…again. Yep. Sorry, I liked writing these. Someday I'm gonna try giving each character their own story to die in. So special, ne? As usual, this is non-yaoi, but I softened Bakura considerably. (Friendship, you heard of it? FRIENDSHIP…and now I sound like Anzu.) A lot of people (including me at times) tend to make him perhaps overly harsh, but I know he's still got a heart. 

Disclaimer: *munching chocolate* Hey, I officially own more energy than I'm entitled to, but nothing else. *boingy-bounces off on a gigantic sugar rush*

^^

Something was wrong with him, I could tell. He ate less and less and sometimes looked as if he was going to cry for no reason. Pretty soon he looked so pitiful I didn't have the heart to slap him around anymore. Yeah, that bad. He tried to hide it, being the stoic wimp that he was, but it's a lost cause to try and hide trouble from your own other half. I started asking, "Are you okay?" when he seemed at his worst, but he always brushed it off. I could never get a straight answer.

I could sense his fatigue at school, watched from my soul room as he stumbled between classes. And then his vision quavered and started to go blank as he collapsed in the hall at school. Quickly, I took over the body and stood up. Actually, we have separate bodies that exchange places. The change just isn't as obvious as when the pharaoh and his Hikari switch. I could easily function for the rest of the day despite whatever ailment Ryou might have. 

I heard Anzu run up behind me. "Bakura? Are you okay?"

"Yeah." I laughed slightly. "I…uh…tripped. Clumsy me." But I knew my Hikari was not all right.

He passed out coming downstairs the next morning. We fell all the way down to the very bottom of the staircase. His father had already gone to work and his brother wasn't home as usual, so I had to tend to him. I revived him and marched him back upstairs. There was no way I was letting him go to school in that condition. Much to my relief, he slept peacefully all morning. He woke up late in the afternoon and called for me like a little kid. I brought him some water and sat by the bed while he drank.

"I told the school you weren't feeling well," I said softly.

"Thanks," he murmured. "Can you help me up?"

"Oh no you don't," I told him. "You are staying right there until you're better. On second thought, I should call the doctor."

He blanched. "No! Don't tell anyone. Don't call the doctor."

I stepped back in surprise. "But why not, Hikari? Don't you want to get better?"

He didn't answer that, just turned away for a moment. Then he looked back at me. "Please," he said softly. "Help me up."

I protested weakly, but his wan face said all he needed. I hauled him up, throwing one of his arms over my shoulder. He didn't even moan when I accidentally bashed his hand on the doorway. He wanted to go to the park then, so I biked and he sat on the handlebars after promising not to fall off suddenly. I couldn't imagine why he wanted to go there, I always found it very boring. Feeding birds was against the rules, so I could never lure any of the neurotic little feathery things into my hands and wring their necks. Of course, Ryou would have been shocked to know that I even thought up such things.

The sky was already tilting to roll the sun to the west when we arrived. I parked the bike and Ryou walked slowly, but without help, to a smooth patch of grass. He flopped down with a tired sigh. I sat down next to him and watched as he brushed his hand over the soft blades, so unlike the ones I used to threaten him with. "Yami," he said quietly. "Do you look at grass?"

I blinked. "Crazy, of course I do. Doesn't everyone?" I pulled up a few pieces and held them out to him.

He shook his head. "You killed them."

I looked at the fragments of green between my fingers. "Hikari, it's _grass._"

"But you hafta look at it just right. Like this." Lying on his stomach, he rested his chin on his crossed arms so that he was nearly eye level with the grass. He then glanced back up at me. "Come on," he urged. "It won't kill you."

Reluctantly, I stretched my legs out behind me, grumbling a little as the greenery tickled my neck. 

"Now look."

I didn't see anything I didn't expect to see at first. I was about to complain when I saw how the light of the setting sun glowed behind the semi-translucent blades, how the thinner-than-a-hair veins flowed up and down in perfect lines. For an instant, I thought I could see the tiny cells that made up that one piece of grass. Suddenly Ryou nudged me and pointed to a ladybug crawling up the stem of a small, nearby weed. I watched its crimson back glint, the thing completely ignoring us as it toiled up the stem for reasons only known to itself. The ladybug spread its wings and flew off. 

The sun was almost gone when I was done looking at grass. Ryou had fallen asleep, lulled by the warm light, softness, and quiet. I woke him and helped him to the bike. The house was still empty when we got back home, but that wasn't unusual. I made a simple dinner while he showered and went to bed. He would have helped, but he still looked much paler than I thought healthy. 

I made him eat dinner in his room; it wasn't like I wanted him falling down the stairs again. I ate with him too, worry irking me. It wasn't right, only I could hurt my Hikari, no one else. I wouldn't tolerate sickness either. On some occasions, I could be more protective than the pharaoh himself. 

"Can we go to the park again tomorrow?" he asked softly.

I felt his forehead. Not because I really knew how to tell a fever from the normal temperature, but because I had no other way to express my concern. "I don't know that you'd be well enough. I really think we should tell a doctor," I said. 

He looked a little sad. "It's no use, Yami. They wouldn't be able to find anything wrong."

"Then what do they get all that money for? Come on, I can't have my other half bed-ridden while I feel fine. You're not fun to beat up, then."

He smiled slightly. "It's nice that you're concerned," he said, not serious, but not sarcastic either. I don't think Ryou was ever capable of sarcasm. 

"But seriously," I said. "It's weird. Usually when you get sick or hurt, so do I. I'm not feeling any of this, but I still got the bruises when you fell down the stairs."

He didn't say anything.

He wasn't strong enough to go to school the next day, either. Yuugi and his gang of friends stopped by to see us and bring Ryou his homework. As I expected, Ryou didn't tell them anything, but brushed them off with his usual "I'm fine." They stayed for a while, making generic comments of sympathy, and then they left. 

I relented and took him to the park again the next day. We went a little earlier, while the sun was still bright. It was funny to watch him. There was something sweetly unique about the way his face lit up with a childish bliss when he found a delicate little flower growing from a crack in the sidewalk. Yet he seemed almost fragile, as if he was perpetually thinning crystal that would easily shatter and become nothing. 

I was looking at grass again when Ryou gave a little cry. I looked up quickly to see what was wrong, but he wasn't unhappy. His eyes were wide with an innocent awe and pleasure. "Look, Yami," he whispered. I followed his gaze and saw two brightly colored butterflies flitting through the air. I never had a high opinion of them, what with their being one of the few insects that could never fly straight. But the look on my Hikari's face told me that he was absolutely enchanted with them. 

"Aren't they beautiful?" he breathed.

"I…guess…"

He lay back on the grass and closed his eyes. "I heard," he started softly, "that butterflies are the souls of the ones who've moved on. They come back to say that everything will be okay, or to comfort us, or see how we're doing. I like them because they never try to hurt anything, and they add color to our world." He opened his eyes again to watch the butterflies. "Sometimes I wonder if any of the ones I see might be my mom," he added in a barely audible voice.

R&R


	2. White Death

The fluttering colors spiraled closer to us. Ryou held out his hand, hoping one might land on him and grace him with its touch. Both circled his fingers in an irregular dance, but neither settled on his pale skin. He watched them drift off and let his eyes droop shut again. 

I thought he had gone to sleep, but then he spoke, though without opening his eyes. "See, Yami? The gentle things in life can be beautiful too. I know that you enjoy the deep crimson of blood or the delicate glint of a knife blade, but the quiet things have many virtues of their own."

I said nothing. I didn't want to admit that I saw his side of things. 

The next day his father finally noticed his younger son's condition. Much against his will, Ryou found himself seeing a doctor. As he had predicted, the professional failed to find the problem. I couldn't figure out how he had known. If no doctor could diagnose the problem, there was no way my Hikari could have figured it out first. 

Or was there?

He still had a tendency to fall asleep or pass out at random times, so the doctor thought it best if he stayed home with someone to watch him. Ryou said he could take care of himself, which meant that I would be stuck babysitting. One might think that staying home all day would be boring, but Ryou didn't seem to think so. He dragged me out of my soul room early one morning to watch the sunrise and made me help him count the colors we saw. And though I don't think he really meant to, he made me admit it was pretty. I had never bothered to watch those things before; something like that involved sitting still and getting up early.

He taught me to look at flowers, and even made me get a potted mini rose for his room when he grew too weak to leave the house. Of course, I ended up watering it most of the time, but he made sure I didn't drown it or dry it out. And he knew exactly which plant food was best for it. It was almost funny how excited he became when its first bud opened to reveal a dark pink blossom. I personally still preferred looking at grass, but the rose was nice too. Fortunately, the pharaoh didn't come around much, or I never would have heard the end of it. I learned to keep house, vacuum, and the like, but mostly Ryou showed me how to look at things differently. Slowly, I saw the bright side of things more and more, and I realized there was more to it than being disgustingly cheerful. 

Of course, I never was as bad as my Hikari. He had the ability to find wonder in the shellac-like gleam of a cockroach's exoskeleton and their thread-like antennae. In my book, those things are only good for crunching underfoot…or throwing at the pharaoh's aibou, who shrieks if they come within a five-mile radius of him. But something about all of this bothered me. Something about the way Ryou viewed these little lessons as an absolute priority. 

I finally asked him one day. "I wanted to teach you about life, about living," he said simply.

"But why?"

"So you know how it's done. I wanted to leave you with something worthwhile, and there's nothing better than a new view on life."

I shivered. "Leave me? You're talking like your dying, Ryou."

He gave me a smile full of peace and a little sadness. "I am, Yami."

I shook my head. "What? As your other half, I should be dying too if that's true."

"It's a different kind of death." He sighed at the confusion on my face. "I don't know how I know this, but it's true. Maybe it comes with bearing a Sennen item. At any rate, possessing such magic shortens one's life, mostly because you share so much of it with another presence. The Hikari will eventually fade and die. You live longer if you have a good relationship with your other, but if they hurt you, you don't last as long."

There was no accusation in his tone, but his words sent a pang through me anyway.

"Malik lost his Yami to the Shadow Realm, so he should last to about sixty. Yuugi probably won't start fading until he's forty-five. I…" He swallowed.

I stared at him. He seemed suddenly younger than his sixteen years, a child with no choice but to wait for death to claim him. 

"I expect to die at sixteen," he whispered. And there was no way I could take anything back.

He wanted to go back to the park again a few days later. He could barely sit up on his own, but we managed to make it. I helped him to the grass where he lay contentedly on his back, watching the clouds and birds. My breath caught suddenly in my throat. "Look, Ryou!"

A cloud of brilliant butterflies came towards us, bobbing and swirling in the air.

"Maybe it's a good sign," I said hopefully.

"Maybe," he replied with a soft smile, watching them come. 

In an instant, they were all around us, a blur of vivid color. In the middle, though, I saw a pure white butterfly, gliding gracefully downwards towards Ryou. He saw it approaching and closed his eyes with a satisfied smile as if he understood something I did not. I watched as it landed gently on his lower lip. I saw him exhale, his warm breath fluttering its wings just a little. 

It took flight again, joining the others. Remembering what I had seen Ryou do once, I stretched out my hand. The white butterfly dipped and spiraled, and then landed momentarily on my index finger. It opened and closed its wings once, as if trying to say something, and then led the others off and away. I watched them go, not sure why tears streamed from my eyes.

I didn't have to look at Ryou's still body to know his spirit had already flown. And, suddenly, I realized I saw no beauty in death.

Owari

Review? Onegai? *puppy-dog eyes*


End file.
